Find the details and read the invitation from the Joplin planning committee at this link:  2013 FESTIVAL INVITATION LETTER

Thanks for the invitation Joplin!  We’ll see you in August!

Of particular interest to Oklahoma Route 66 enthusiasts is the section on historic bridges and the surveys that ODOT has performed on historic bridges in Oklahoma.  The most recent inventory is the Oklahoma Historic Bridge Survey: Reevaluation of Spans of Time (May 2007).  There is a specific list of historic bridges located on Route 66.  There is also a link to county-by-county maps with the historic bridge locations marked.

Another portion of the bridge section has historic bridge narratives.  These are the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) standard documents covering the bridge’s history.  I don’t see the narrative for the recently replaced Verdigris bridge though…

Another section worth exploring is the Links section.  Here you will find links to Federal regulations related to historic preservation.  This is interesting from the standpoint of making yourself knowledgable about the “rules” that federal/state agencies have to follow when dealing with historic properties.

The first part of the long-anticipated “East Meets West” statue is finally being installed at the Cyrus Avery Centennial Plaza at the east end of the Cyrus Avery Route 66 Memorial Bridge (a.k.a. the Eleventh Street Bridge) in Tulsa.

The enormous bronze was funded by Tulsa’s Vision 2025 program and was originally scheduled for installation in 2009 but was delayed after the sculptor was seriously injured in a fall.

When completed, the sculpture will depict Cyrus Avery, the “Father of Route 66,” climbing out of his car to help a farmer whose horses have been startled by the vehicle. The horses, wagon and farmer have not yet arrived from the foundry in Texas where they were made, but Avery, his family and their car are already at the plaza.

The sculpture shows Avery’s wife turning to check on their daughter and her obviously terrified cat.

(Post contributed by The Campbell Hotel.)

Tulsa is home to a pair of old Phillips 66 stations that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Both stations are on or near historic alignments of Route 66 and bear the distinctive cottage-style architecture favored by the Oklahoma-based petroleum company during the early 1930s.

The Vickery Phillips 66 Station, 602 S. Elgin Ave., was built around 1932 in what was then a residential area, according to the Tulsa Preservation Commission’s website. Virgil Vickery, who lived in a nearby apartment, leased the station in 1946 and ran it as the Vickery Phillips 66. A separate garage to the west of the station was used to provide repair and maintenance services to vehicles.

The Vickery station, located just off the 1926-1932 Second Street alignment of Route 66, received a matching grant from the National Park Service’s Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program in 2006 to help offset the cost of rehabbing the building and repurposing it for use as an Avis car-rental office. Its colorful tile roof, arched front door, and chimney adorned with a circular ornamentation (originally used to display a Phillips 66 logo) are typical of 1930s Phillips stations.

To the northeast, just off the same alignment of Route 66 at 2224 E. Admiral Blvd. in the Kendall-Whittier neighborhood, Phillips 66 Station #473 features similar architecture, except a 1941 expansion brought an attached garage linked to the original 1929 building by an enclosed work area, according to the Tulsa Preservation Commission.

Both buildings originally would have been painted emerald green, with multicolored roof shingles and orange signs featuring the Phillips 66 logo. Vivid color scheme aside, these little cottage-style stations were designed to blend into residential neighborhoods.

Phillips 66 Station #473 and the Vickery station were both listed on the National Register in 2004. They are among more than 50 properties in Tulsa that are on the National Register of Historic Places.